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Consociationalism and Racial Cleavages: Redefining the Boundaries of Consociationalism

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Consociationalism and Racial Cleavages: Redefining the Boundaries of Consociationalism Consociationalism and Racial Cleavages: Redefining the Boundaries of Consociationalism By Jitske Mijna Grift Submitted to Central European University Department of Political Science In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts/Sciences Supervisor: Professor Matthijs Bogaards CEU eTD Collection Budapest, Hungary (2019) Abstract “A portion of mankind may be said to constitute a Nationality if they are united among themselves by common sympathies which do not exist between them and any others—which make them co-operate with each other more willingly than with other people, desire to be under the same government, and desire that it should be government by themselves or a portion of themselves exclusively.” (Mill, 1873, 308). With this, John Stuart Mill opened chapter sixteen of his book Considerations on Representative Democracy, and established his case for why democracies need to have a uniting factor. But what about countries that do not have this uniting factor? Countries that have divides. Almost 200 years after John Stuart Mill published his book, Arend Lijphart wrote about just that, democracies in divided societies. Lijphart coined the theory consociational democracies, which are democracies that have divides based on factors such as language, religion, ethnicity, race, or culture, but they still function as democracies (Lijphart, 1969). However, Lijphart’s theory has not been without controversy, as some criticize the idea that consociationalism can work for countries that have a racial divide (Barry, 1975). The question about whether democracy can work in racially divided societies is now more relevant than ever, with globalization and international migration, more and more societies are becoming racially diverse. This paper will look deeper into the question of how consociational societies handle racial divides, and by doing that hopes to show that an consociationalism is incompatible with a racial divide. CEU eTD Collection i Acknowledgments I would like to thank several people for their help in creating this thesis. To Mahnoor, thank you for putting up with me during this writing process. To Anashua, you didn’t help but I knew you would be upset if I did not include you. To Kinga, in vino sapientia To Viswesh, thank you for your conversations, they have helped me greatly To my little sister Mijke, who always picked up the phone even when it was late at night, I love you and I miss you. I’ll be home soon. A special acknowledgment goes to my parents, Gert Grift and Thera Wolf, who have fought hard their entire lives to give me the opportunities that did not come easy to them growing up. If it wasn’t for their education, their determination, and their incredible working ethic, I would not be where I am right now. This thesis is dedicated to my grandparents, who were forced to stop going to school at a young age, who had to work hard their entire lives, who never got to experience their childhood as I did. I did it for all of you. “En aan de leraar die mij altijd placht te dreigen Jongen jij komt nog op het verkeerde pad CEU eTD Collection Kan tevreden zijn en hoeft niet meer te krijgen Dat wil zeggen, hij heeft toch gelijk gehad” - Testament, Boudewijn de Groot ii Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................. i Acknowledgments ................................................................................................. ii List of figures ........................................................................................................ iii Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 ............................................................................................................... 6 1.1 Research questions ................................................................................................. 6 1.2 Definitions .............................................................................................................. 8 Chapter 2 ............................................................................................................. 16 2.1 Data ..................................................................................................................... 16 2.2 Consociational democracy or not? ......................................................................... 27 Chapter 3 ............................................................................................................. 31 3.1 The end of consociationalism?............................................................................... 31 3.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 44 Sources ................................................................................................................ 50 CEU eTD Collection ii List of figures Table 1……………………………………………………………………………..17 Table 2……………………………………………………………………………..27 CEU eTD Collection iii Introduction In his paper Consociational Democracy, published in 1969, Arend Lijphart called attention to a type of democracy that he found to have gone unnoticed. Lijphart mentions the classification of political systems by Gabriel A. Almond, who classifies political systems in three different categories (Lijphart, 1969, 207). First, he mentions the political system in countries such as Britain and the US, which he classified as the Anglo-American political system (Lijphart, 1969, 207) Second, Almond mentions the political system in France Germany and Italy, which he classified as the Continental European political system (Lijphart, 1969, 207). The third category was not specified by Almond, but includes the Low Countries of Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries (Lijphart, 1969, 207). Almond does not go deeply into the political system of the third category, instead saying that they are a combination between both the Continental and Anglo- American political system (Lijphart, 1969, 207). While the qualifications have specific geographical names, Almond’s classifications were not tied to any geographic location, as Lijphart mentions (Lijphart, 1969, 207-208). Lijphart focuses his paper on the third classification that Almond made, the Low Countries and Scandinavia. While Almond claims that these countries are hybrids of the two other categories, Lijphart claims that these countries are actually their own separate political system, which he names as consociational democracies (Lijphart, 1969, 207). Lijphart describes consociational democracies as the following; “Consociational democracy means government by elite cartel designed to turn a CEU eTD Collection democracy with a fragmented political culture into a stable democracy.” (Lijphart, 1969, 216). This is a very concise way of describing consociationalism, so perhaps a broader description might be better. Consociationalism is a political system for divided societies, this divide might be caused by race, religion, language, ethnicity, or race, and the divide is also seen in 1 the political system, where political parties represent their own segment of society (Bogaards, 2017, 1). Consociationalism focusses on the political leaders of the different segments of society, who, realizing that they will have to cooperate to run a stable country, decide to accommodate each other (Bogaards, 2017,1). Consociational democracy is built on four principles, which were described by Bogaards in his entry into the Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Theory, which are the following; “a grand coalition government with the leaders of all main parties/communities; proportionality in political representation and the distribution of resources; segmental autonomy; and a mutual veto” (Bogaards, 2017, 1). However, these principles are not absolutely set, they can be adapted to the country that decides to use consociationalism to deal with the divisions in the society (Bogaards, 2017, 1). Lijphart’s model was used around the world to bridge divides in society and end conflict (Bogaards, 2017, 1). While consociationalism was embraced by parts of the political science community as a way to handle conflict in divided societies, there was also criticism against the theory. Part of this criticism was against the use of consociationalism in societies divided by racial conflict. In his paper, Political Accommodation and Consociational Democracy, Brian Barry writes about his criticism against consociationalism. While he first discusses how he does not believe all countries that are claimed to be consociational are consociational, he later goes further into how consociationalism is not compatible with racial conflict, however Barry refers to this as ethnic conflict. Barry mentions four reasons why consociationalism could not be compatible with ethnic divisions. The first is the fact that acts of gross inhumanity are CEU eTD Collection mostly aimed at groups that are ethnically different from the perpetrators, especially when the victims also have physical or cultural differences (Barry, 1975, 502). The second is that religion and class different are about organizations, specifically belonging to a certain organization, whereas ethnic differences are about solidarity groups, while they might have an 2 organization, it is not necessary to have an organization to start riots just the ability to recognize who belongs to which
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